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Pacquiao and opium for the masses. Same-same.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: One module in our Philippine Popular Culture (IP 364, it is) course at the university where I teach is dedicated to sports-as-religion and beauty-as-mythology, one not distinct from the other if we deal with the mindless masses that include yours truly.

I swear to the Las Vegas gods: I am not any better.

I fall into the same seductions of the spectacular, the scenic, and the un-sensient mysteries of plain dolce to enjoy life and forget war, and while still high, I can say, "Alleluia! Alleluia! Praise, praise to the Philippine oligarchs, monarchs, myth-makers, altar mythologists, and presidents by the dirty and poisonous Pasig River!"

Today, we stop.

Today, we give chance to hope--and hope against hope that he wins, this darling of a Sarangani godling who daydreams of beginning the president of a god-forsaken land called da Filipins.

With his million dollars, Pacquiao-as-the-opium-of-the-masses he can always win among the voting mindless masses that can be bought for 500 pesos, the same amount reportedly inserted surreptitiously by a convicted plunderer to win the mayoralty in the former kingdom of Tondo.

Let Lakandula be the judge about this report of vote-buying and let Rajah Sulayman too become our dead witness.

The Philippine media are going gung-ho about reporting--and thus repeating the benefits of becoming opiated by the Pacquiao boxing--that wars will stop in Mindanao, the CPP-NPA will not ambush those they want to ambush, and those separatists will remember that they are Filipinos.